Well, the Christmas Day menu is finalised at last! I don't know what took me so long, it was staring me in the face the whole time. Ever since I read Mimi's last cooking section in the November newsletter I have been dreaming about Poached Chicken with Bar Room Slaw and Festive Citrus Dukkah. And ever since I read Fiona's comment about 'Christmas food doesn't have to be expensive, it just has to be yummy', I've repeated it over and over in my head until last night I made my decision. I've been dying to make Mimi's menu for days, so this is what we shall have and for dessert I shall be making Cheat's Tiramisu from this thread courtesy of - you guessed it - Mimi!
As it turns out, almost all the yummy things we are set to enjoy for Christmas are SS in one form or another! We will have the above dishes for lunch, accompanied by home made bread rolls. Dinner will be an informal barbecue using whatever we have on hand. If the weather is good enough for Noel and the boys to go fishing on Christmas Eve, we'll have seafood. If not, we'll grab steak and sausages from the freezer.
As for the munchies, where do I start? I made the most amazing three-ingredient Christmas cake the other day, using a recipe I'm sure other members will recognise. Apologies for not being able to give credit where it's due (perhaps you could shed a little light on the original contributor for me?) but thanks heaps to the lovely Glennis for sharing it with me. Glennis has already made more than a dozen of these cakes for Christmas and as soon as I heard she made them using chocolate milk I had to give it a try for myself!
Chocolate Milk Fruit Cake.
Add 1kg of mixed fruit into 600ml of chocolate flavoured milk and mix well. Cover and place in the fridge overnight. Next morning add 2 cups of sifted self raising flour, and mix well again. Grease and line a tin with baking paper, pour in the mixture, pat down with hand, (that is so messy!) lick hand well, and cook mixture for 1 hours at 180C.
I can't believe that a cake so amazingly simple can turn out so well but it came out perfectly! Although you might want to check it before your 90 minutes is up; mine was well and truly done after an hour and ten. It makes a great big cake which is perfect to have on hand for when visitors come around at this time of year and compared to the cost of making a traditional cake, this version is a LOT cheaper! So thank you to Glennis and the original contributor, whoever you are!
We'll also be having Penny's Truffles, the recipe of which I gave in a recent blog, and to top it all off, a huge platter of Linda's Atomic Rum Balls! I found this recipe in the Forum a while back in a thread talking about home made gifts. The name jumped out at me and I have been keen to try them out ever since I found them. So I made a batch at the weekend and wow! I can see why they're called Atomic Rum Balls, they pack quite a punch! They are delicious and very more-ish; the only problem is I can't stop scoffing them! For some really annoying reason the wonders of technology just will not let me copy the recipe in here but it is too good not to share so if you would like it for yourself, you can trawl through this thread to find it (be warned, it's a long one!) or simply email me penny@simplesavings.com.au and I'll send it to you.
I have a feeling I'll be waddling along the beach rather than walking after that lot but what the heck, it's Christmas! This will be my last post of the year as tomorrow the first of our visitors comes and we will have guests from Christmas Eve until New Year. And what a year it's been! I don't think our family could finish 2010 off on a better note. There's still barely a day that goes by that we don't pinch ourselves and thank the powers that be for our wonderful new life. We wish every one of you a brilliant Christmas and a super prosperous 2011. Catch you in the New Year!
